


A Thin Line

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky needs and deserves a hug, Gen, and people might notice, but that's a little hard when your arm is made out of metal, super tiny chapters as usual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 22:52:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7011520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a distinction between living and merely existing. Bucky felt he was on the wrong side of that thin line. </p><p>In which Bucky slowly finds his own place in this world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thin Line

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: I removed the original notes. Again, old story, not sure if I like it anymore, not sure what I wrote anymore. Proceed with caution.

There is a distinction between living and merely existing. Bucky felt he was on the wrong side of that thin line. 

He’d gone to the library once. Maybe a few times. The place is impressive. Shelves filled with multicoloured books that reach to far above his head, a very high ceiling and dark wooden structures you were supposed to put your hands on when you descended the stairs. They made him uncomfortable. He did not know why. He didn’t touch them. 

He wasn’t there for the regular books though. The thought had kept him awake for several nights now: 

Is there a difference?

Is it even possible for him to to be living?

Is it even possible for a person to only exist?

Was he making sense?

If he could not trust his brain, maybe he could trust the dictionary. He picked a blue English version and flipped through the pages. First living.

Huh. It meant ‘alive’. Well, he was alive alright. On to existing.

‘in existence or operation at the current time.’ 

Also fitting. 

He was both. Everybody was both. And yet.

Maybe there was an emotional difference? What are the connotations people have with those words? He’d ask, but nobody around here spoke English. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t ask.

He knew what they meant to him. That must be enough.

Living is having friends, right? Bucky’d seen them, going into a bar late at night. He used to do that. Not anymore.

Living might be having a home. A pet inside the home. A partner? He remembers somebody at home.

Living is having enough money to buy more than the absolute necessities.

All around him, people are living. He lived. Once. It’s not something he lies awake over.

Existing though. He was existing.

Existing was staying alive.

Existing meant sleeping in a bag on the side of the street.

Existing meant, generally, a lot of bread.

Existing meant jotting down your every thought into a notebook in a vain attempt to gain a friend: if you pretended hard enough, it could be a person. Not like he really spoke to anybody else.

Existing meant people throwing money at him because they pitied his fate. He did too. It would be better if they didn’t have those looks on their faces. Maybe generosity was in there somewhere, but is was mainly being proud of yourself mixed with a slight disgust. He hated them.

Existing meant wearing the same clothes every single day.

Existing meant not being able to wash those or yourself properly. Sometimes a public bathroom would help out.

Existing meant heavy labour because he couldn’t do anything else.

Existing meant hiding your damn arm when you’re outside, which is always, in the rain, in the sun, goddammit, the sun, he couldn’t wear a hoodie in mid-summer,

Alright, maybe that was just him. Point is, he wasn’t really living past the point of not being dead.

He set down the crate with a sigh and walked back to the truck to get the next one. It was a cool morning, but the air promised the day would get a lot warmer towards the afternoon. He picked up the next one, with apples. 

A little ironic, isn’t it. Walking around with piles of fruit every morning if you can’t afford a simple orange.

The old lady with an apron nodded at him and pointed to where she wanted her merchandise. She was always wearing an apron. There were three. Orange flowers, pink dots and blue stripes. The pink dots meant she was happy and would pay him a little more than usual (‘Here, young man, go buy yourself a nice bar of candy.’ She’d pinched his cheek. She was very old. He’d bought bread again.) The orange flowers meant it was a regular day, and blue stripes meant she was going to complain about everything including his crate-carrying abilities. Maybe he was reading into it too much. But her wearing the flowers was still a bit of a relief.

He slammed the thing down on the little stall, and walked, still lost in thoughts on aprons and their deeper meaning, into another worker.  
It was times like these he was very glad his sweater was so thick, otherwise there’d surely been a loud ‘clang’ noise and they’d want an explanation and there wouldn’t be any other than ‘Yeah I have a metal arm. Got it in Russia about seventy years ago.’ 

The guy laughed.

‘Wow man! Your arm is like made of…’

Don’t say metal, don’t say metal, don’t

‘Stone!’

Good.

Bucky smiled quickly at him and went on with his day.


End file.
